Reading the Trees Around You
Like Duolingo, but for Reading the Trees Around You. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
For the part of you with thirty open tabs that never became anything.
A short one: 12 levels across 2 sections, about 24 minutes end to end, roughly 5 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Close-Up Clues on the Twig and The Whole Tree and Its World. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in Reading the Trees Around You
- Needle-bearing conifers are almost always evergreen
- A few exceptions like larches turn bright yellow and drop all their needles in autumn
- A true leaf has a growth bud at the base where its stalk meets the woody branch
- Individual leaflets along a compound leaf stalk do not have buds at their base
- Oaks feature deeply cut, wavy lobes along the blade
- Maples show distinct hand-shaped lobes spreading out from the base
- Many simple broadleaves like birch have sharply serrated, saw-toothed edges
- The vast majority of broadleaf trees have alternate leaf arrangements, staggering along the twig
- Only a select few common trees (like maples and ashes) have leaves arranged in opposite pairs
- Oaks grow in an alternating pattern and never display opposite pairs
- Sassafras leaves release a strong, sweet citrus or root-beer aroma when crushed
- Pine needles give off a sharp, recognizable turpentine resin scent
- Common oaks have relatively neutral, dry scents that offer little scent-based identification
- Bark roughens and cracks as a tree expands, but distinctive textural motifs remain consistent
- Birch displays horizontal peeling curls, ash forms clean geometric diamond fissures, and shagbark hickory sheds dramatic vertical plates
- Lenticels appear as distinct raised horizontal dashes or slits that allow living inner bark cells to breathe gas through tight outer skin
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Reading the Trees Around You the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
What happens to a larch tree when autumn arrives?
Get it right to open this lesson and 11 more in the app.
Where Reading the Trees Around You takes you
Transform everyday walks by learning to spot tree species at a glance. Use simple visual clues in leaves, bark, seeds, and surroundings to decode the forest and street trees near you.
- 1
Close-Up Clues on the Twig
- Leaves at a Glance
- Bark and Twigs Without Leaves
- 2
The Whole Tree and Its World
- Cones, Nuts, and Keys
- Reading Habitat and Shape
2 sections · 4 units · 12 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
You pick the voice
Reading the Trees Around You is taught in the The Professor style: clear, structured, thorough. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start Reading the Trees Around You today.
Download Tomo, search Reading the Trees Around You, and play your first lesson in under a minute.